The trials, tribulations, successes & epic fails of a North Devon Schools Web Designer.

Posts in category Amazing

Frog OS – First Peek

May16
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

Frog OS

Have been using the Frog OS Sandbox this week checking out the new version that will be coming our way later in the year. The obvious big benefits are it’s ability to work & create content on virtually all devices & I’m looking forward to being able to build a Homework Hunter interface as soon as we get our hands on it.
Students will love the themeing facility, allowing them to skin it with a whole range of designs & I suspect an even higher higher proportion of Staff will like the increased ease of use in the resource design & build tools.
An exciting development whichever way you look at it.
No access to the admin interface as yet but again I’m hoping that will be as nice to use as the Sandbox.
Well played Frog, ahead of the pack again.

Frog OS Skins

Posted in Beta Testing, Developments, Frog Learning Platform, Frog Powered, Future Dev, Homework, Mobile Devices, Web Design

It’s Back!…..

Mar15
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

…and this time it’s better than ever before! Eggwatch 2013 LIVE from Faraday Block is now online and we think that all the action is due to happen next Monday or Tuesday.
I’ve even been promised that there is no chance of baking the eggs this year. (So long as the thermostat doesn’t blow up again.)

On a more serious note I’ll be e mailing our feeder primary schools as well as our staff as the ‘hatch fest’ coincides with ‘National Science & Engineering Week’.

Tune in now for the non stop action.

 

Posted in Bideford College Online, Community Engagement, Fun, Kinda Cool, Online Tools, Web Cams

Hits Rise Again in 2012

Jan08
2013 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

It looks like it’s been another good year for my little babies nestling under the umbrella of Bideford College Online.

The Main College Website has had over 70,000 hits alone this year continuing it’s year on year rise.

Add to that nearly 24,000 hits to this news blog, nearly 400 Twitter Followers and a high hit rate on our Facebook page and it’s good evidence to demonstrate I must be doing something right!
During the past 12 months I’ve been working hard to provide Parents and Carers, the wider community and the world in general with better College-Centric online provision.
However the most staggering statistic is reserved for ‘Bidefrog’. Students visited the home page a staggering 114,649 times in the past year.
I’m hoping for big things with more frog powered resources coming online in the next 12 months including ‘Homework Hunter’.

As ever Student & Department blogging continues in popularity and I’m looking forward to the rest of 2013 when I hope to be venturing into new developmental areas releasing iPhone, Android & iPad apps for news and homework.
There’s bound to be the the usual mountain of resources too.

Happy Blogging in 2013!

Stu

Posted in Blogs & Blogging, Developments, Future Dev, Inspirational, Luddites Progress, Student Engagement, Survey

Posterous Connections

May28
2012 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

And now onto another project I’ve been trying to complete for months & months & months & FINALLY found the time to do it today.
Posterous (Recently acquired by Twitter) is a cool little blogging platform BUT much, much more.
It enables you to connect to a whole host of online publishing platforms and simultaneously post to everything you have in one go from the one place.
It’s the final link in our little social chain and allows followers, whatever there chosen weapon to, keep up to date with the weekly goings on at the College.
So now, at last!, we have an easy way to publish to Tumblr, Facebook, WordPress, Twitter to it’s own Posterous ‘Space’ too.
Check it out.

Posted in Blogs & Blogging, Developments, Kinda Cool, Online Tools, WordPress

RSS Powered Blast Of Inspiration

Sep14
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

For quite sometime it’s been our intention to bring our student morning sheet online & out from the cold of being trapped in a word document.
(We’ve been running an online submission form for ages but the end result has been firmly locked in the dark ages.)
The other morning I was walking down a corridor & saw that the tutor was displaying the word doc on their whiteboard. (I think I’d previously subconsciously assumed that they would just read it out to students when it landed in their inbox as an attachment to a mail) Good idea I thought but then was struck with a painfully obvious hammer blow that surely there was a better way to do just that.

The trouble as I saw it was that in order for the member of staff to do that simple task they had to click a link on their homepage, log into their mail, find the morning sheet e-mail amongst everything else, open the attachment in word and then show it on the I.W. whiteboard. They then had to find the relevant section amongst all the other info for their tutor group.

The solution came in a rush of inspiration over a few hours yesterday morning & I’ve developed a solution appears in the guise of a dynamically tabbed Frog page that displays a series of RSS feeds generated via Jitbit’s excellent RSS Feed Creator (A major bargain for only £20)
Each tab just shows the relevant info for that specific year group as well as having tabs that display feeds from some of our WordPress powered blogs. Now the staff member will only have to click on a single link on their homepage to get to the information. For me the fundamentally important thing is that the info is now dynamic and can also be pushed in a wide range of directions to things like the Student Homepage, Year group specific Frog Home Pages, Digital Signage, Parent Portals etc etc etc. If you want a sneaky peek there’s a Beta test demo running here.

We’ll be running some full trials shortly & I’ll post an update as & when but I’m confident that finally we’ve come up with a solution that works and is a big step forward in the right direction.
initial feedback from those managing the current system has been extremely positive and I’m looking forward to presenting it to staff soon.

Posted in Design, Developments, Kinda Cool, News, Online Tools, Resources

Two New Blogs

Jul14
2011 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

Two new blogs about to go live this week, Class of 2015 & The Student Voice.

Posted in Blogs & Blogging, Developments

The Greatest Show On Earth?

Jul09
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

It’s July & it can only mean one thing. TDF. Le Tour. The Tour De France, quite possibly THE greatest show on earth. This year, the 97th Tour de France, will be made up of 1 prologue and 20 stages and will cover a staggering total distance of 3,642 kilometres. To be honest, in my humble opinion that is, there is nothing that even comes close to the Tour, it is without equal. Period. Follow every stage on ITV4 daily.

Posted in Television

Not quite a video wall but…..

May14
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

it’ll do. Now I’m not known to brag but…. check out my new look, 106cm wide, dual screen setup. Finally, FINALLY after goodness knows how long, I can now see full size Photoshop & Dreamweaver web pages, docs & templates open at the same time!!! Result.
It’s a revelation and SO much easier to work with. I think it’s fair to say I’ve paid my dues and have at last got a pro style work environment. A huge thanks to the powers that be for finally giving up after being harangued for so many years! Big grin. :)

Posted in Developments, Kinda Cool

Greens Win Mirrors Hung Parliament Result

May07
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

Our first ever completely digital election result gives the Green Party victory with a 36% share of the vote polling 153 votes in all & 42 ahead of the nearest rival, ! Ironically the result also mirrors the national one in that it would provide us with a hung Parliament. There was actually quite a buzz about the project in the polling station at lunchtime yesterday and it was really good to see the level of student engagement across the school, either in tutor groups or via the student homepages. Sadly or rather predictably there were 49 spoiled votes out of a total of 487 cast, notable for the fact that Adolf Hitler, 1234, hjgx &  ’You are stupid’ are all, apparently, students at the College. I closed the online poll bang on 10pm & set about number crunching & photoshopping the results, publishing them at about 10.30pm. Quicker than any paper based system I’ll bet.
The winner is on study leave today so we’ll have to wait for a reaction till’ Monday. One member of staff challenged me declaring that he might have to call in UN observers due to the nature of our very ‘African’ style election. Namely that the winning candidates father organised the election voting system. I was unavailable for comment. Check out the whole story HERE

Posted in Fun, Student Engagement

Gotta love the Google Maps API

Apr20
2010 Leave a Comment Written by Stuart

Thanks to the popularity of Googles’ all conquering ‘Maps‘ & ‘Street View’ the list of additional uses of the maps api just keeps getting better & better. In light of two of the current big news stories here in the UK (The Icelandic volcanic eruption & the impending general election) I thought I ‘d share with you a few of my fave implementations of the aforementioned api.

Flight Rader 24 - View real time GPS signals from all the flights in European airspace. Especially amusing at the moment.
Walk Jog Run – I’ve been a fan of ‘Walk Jog Run’ for quite a while now. Takes the basic Google measuring tool & ramps it up a notch or two.
Twit Vote – Simple but interesting vote intention plotter using your Twitter account.
Street Art Locator – International map of street art locations.

If you have any other great uses of the gmapi then drop me a message.

Posted in Inspirational
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About BCO WebDev

BCO WebDev
I've worked at the College for 15 years now, initially as a music dept' techie & then as a resource technician.
A significant amount of time since then was spent as an I.T Techie then 5 years or so ago I was promoted to the dizzy heights of "Web Developer & Curriculum Resources Technician".
Currently I design, develop & manage virtually all of the College's web presence, am closely involved in the continued development of our Frog powered learning platform as well as creating mountains of stuff in Photoshop/Dreamweaver for all sorts of departmental resources.
I'm a commited blogger, surf & skate fanatic & groove loving bass player.
When not doing all that I still find time to run 10K once in a while, take photos, make Skateboards in an after school club & then collapse in a heap @ the end of the day.
I harboured ambitions to be a helicopter pilot when I was young.
Check the About Page for more stuff & nonsense.

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BCO WebDev The views expressed on this blog are strictly those of the author and no other. Devon County Council & Bideford College cannot be held responsible for any comments, statements or views expressed by author. Every effort is made to ensure that the information provided on these pages is accurate and up to date, but no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements. Please have a nice, peaceful & non confrontational day.
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